In almost 16 years of being in the real estate business, with half of those years spent officially and unofficially coaching, I can honestly tell you that less than 30 per cent of the agents I have come across have written a business plan.
If you don’t have a business plan, ask yourself why.
And don’t answer with, “I don’t know.”
Maybe start your sentence with “I don’t know” and end it with “how to write a business plan.”
Now we have a place to work from. In order for us to perform an audit, we have to have a plan to audit in the first place.
Write a business plan
So if you don’t have a plan, follow these simple steps to identify your lead pillars and get started:
- Where did your business come from the previous year?
- How many deals did you do?
- How much money did you make?
- How much money did you spend?
Project into the next year and identify:
- Where do you want to get the business from?
- How many deals do you want to do?
- How much money do you want to make?
- How much do you have to spend?
Break down the system you used to generate the business and identify what worked and what didn’t. Get rid of what didn’t work and focus all your time, money, energy and resources on doubling down on what did work.
Performing quarterly audits
Now that you have a plan to work from, you will need to perform quarterly audits to keep yourself on track to match or eclipse your goals.
An audit, by definition, is an “inspection of an individual’s or organization’s accounts” and also “A systematic review or assessment of something.”
In order to continue with the business plan we laid out for ourselves months earlier, we need to assess a few things before we proceed into the next quarter.
Number one, are you actually fulfilling the plan? Have you done everything you said you would do for lead generation inside that pillar? If you have, that is great news; now you have something to assess.
If you haven’t done what you said you were going to do, it’s time to get real and get accountable. You need to ask yourself why. Again, do not answer with “I don’t know.” If you start with that, you need to end with something that points to why you didn’t start in the first place. “I didn’t do that client event because I don’t know where to start.”
Second, you need to look at the system you have in place and identify if it’s working or not. The best metrics to look at are lead flow through the system and number of transactions completed relative to the goal.
I would say if you are building up your prospects and potential client lists but don’t have any sales, keep going. It’s only a matter of time before you break through, so long as you are following up.
If you have no prospects and no deals, it’s time to be honest with the system you put in place and either scrap it or put it on the back burner.
Third, once you’ve been able to identify what has worked and what hasn’t, you need to focus your efforts on what is working and shelve (for now) what hasn’t. If you have five lead pillars and only three are working, shelve the other two and double your efforts on the successful three.
Analyze your budget
Lastly, how does the budget look? Are you under budget or over budget on your expenditures? If you are over, identify why and look for ways to get things under control for the next quarter. On the flip side, if you are under, understand how that happened and see if there are areas where you can deploy the same type of structure to increase your margins.
Real estate professionals need to start looking at this as a business. The person that owns and operates the Tim Hortons franchise down the block has to know their margins right down to the last penny. They know the cost of the cup, the cost of the coffee packets, employment, rent, mortgage, taxes, etcetera.
Monthly or quarterly audits will help you continually improve efficiency, costs, service levels and ultimately, your bottom line putting more money into your pocket at the end of the year.
It’s time for real estate professionals to start treating this business like a business.
I am a second generation REALTOR®, SUCCESS Certified real estate coach, a real estate trainer with a proven track record as well as an international speaker (which means I’ve spoken all over Canada and the US).
I knew early on in life that I was going to be an educator; I started with University thinking I was going to be a high school teacher. Life took me in another direction. However, my passion for learning and educating has never left. I am a student of history, business and of life. My passion lies in high-level discussions around business strategies and helping agents & brokers build a bigger, better, and highly profitable real estate business.
I have been married to my beautiful wife for over 16 years, and we have smart, athletic and articulate 14-year-old twins. We enjoy hiking through the Okanagan together, spending time at the beach and on the lake as well as traveling the continent and hopefully at some point, the globe. I love to play golf, work out in the gym, hang out with my friends, and am a huge Green Bay Packers football fan.
